Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

Yup I think I am done too. I think the only ones I will get is Hulk since I own basically every issue.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

I quit in 1985. I was off to UC Davis, and I was a huge DC fan, but DC Comics were revamping their entire line with CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTH.

Flash and Supergirl were killed off...no more Earth 1, 2, S. X. Prime or any other parallel worlds...Superman was being updated by Byrne...Batman was reimagined as THE DARK KNIGHT...and WATCHMEN was one of the last comics I ever bought from the newstand.

Every little detail I knew about DC continuity was no more (admittedly, most of DC history was composed of mediocre to a little above mediocre stories and characters), and after the CRISIS, it seemed like a good idea to grow out of collecting comics.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

Mine ended I think in 2005. 1986-2005 but I had purchased a house, prices were going up, and a great deal of my weekly stack were going unread. I wasn't enjoying Morrison's run and my rock Chris Claremont just wasn't putting out good work, Igor Kordey's horrible art didn't help either.

I've picked up a few things that have looked interesting here and there but now I probably set foot in a comic book store 4 times a year when it used to be every Wednesday.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

Since I still pick up a few titles for a friend, I may have to just have those titles be put on a a pull list (I have never had a pull list with my long-time LCS, just so I could walk away without feeling obligated to pick up 2 months of comics when I decided enough was enough in terms of costs/pricing), and pick up comics once a month. *sob*

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

The DC and Marvel Solicitations for November 2010 is out.... DC $2.99 titles are stilll being solicited for $2.99. Surprisingly, even Superboy #1 has a $2.99 cover price. Most of Marvel titles have been $3.99 since a year ago.

I've dropped Marvel books except for the Omnibus and Oversized Hardcovers which I love. Anyone notice that most of Marvel's Premiere Hardcovers are now contain only 4 issues? As for DC, I just get a subscription from them for multiple titles. The issues never arrive mint (spine stress) thru the mail but for less than a dollar an issue its more than fine with me.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

I buy about 2 Marvel titles (Invincible Iron Man and Black Widow), when they go to $3.99, I'm done with those titles too. It pained me to drop Captain America earlier this year, but I'm not shelling out extra $$$ for a Nomad back-up story. When (and it's coming sooner than later) DC is also up to $3.99 for 22 pages of story/art per issue, I'm pretty much done with most of their output too. I'll have to check out Previews if they show up next week at the LCS and see if my comic buying habit has a stay of execution for at least 2-3 more months...

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

I collected for 25 years and stopped in '98 for most of the reasons given in the other posts. I still go into the comic store and conventions to pick up silver age books that catch my eye. Even though I haven't picked up a monthly in over a decade I decided to pick up Batman Odyssey. What a load of crap. Even though it was illustrated by my favorite artist of all time, Neal Adams; the book itself was so bad I wish I could get back the 10 minutes I put into reading it and my $4 back. I want a refund. It just re enforced the fact I'm glad I stopped buying. Saying that I do follow The Walking Dead. A friend lent me every issue and I have been keeping up with it. Luckily, I don't buy and just borrow.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

Well, took a gander at the Previews for November, and DC is still holding the line at $2.99 for most of the titles I still collect, but I'm getting the sense they are going to put the whammy on their consumers for the new year in 2011 offerings. Granted, they do have quite a lot of titles at $3.99 now, I'm not buying much at that price level now, and don't anticipate doing so when the price hike hammer finally comes down hard on everybody.

Batman Odyssey was a chore to get through. Neal Adam can still draw, but he hasn't quite figured out that he doesn't need 15,000 words in a single issue to tell a story.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

The plot had potential but it needed a real writer. Frank Miller was supposed to write the story but I don't know why that didn't happen. Or they should have bought Denny O'Neil back to partner up with Adams. That would have been awesome to team up on a Batman story at least one more time after all these years. To me their work on Detective and Batman is still the best.



http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Lf1ycYAH0A.../s1600/244.jpg


I thought the cover to Odyssey #2 looked lazy since it looked too similar to the old cover below. Was he paying homage to himself?

http://www.comicbookresources.com/as...978724_cvr.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Lf1ycYAH0A...tive398-00.JPG

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

I quit in the mid 90s because everything it seemed was going to Hell in superhero comics. Spider-man was revealed to be a clone and the real one was a blonde guy named Ben Reilly, Batman had been replaced by a brainwashed assassin in cybernetic gear, and Superman had long hair.

I got back into a monthly comic habit when Jim Lee started drawing Batman. After a few good comics I discovered around that time, things got worse with Identity Crisis, and soon it seemed everything was part of some 80-part mega event.

I was going to quit comics for good but realized, either way, going every Wednesday to the comic shop and expecting Watchmen quality stories is not gonna happen, and only making me more jaded.

Now I just go to the comic shop once in a while and usually find something fun to read whether it be in the back issue bins or on the shelf.

After about 25 years myself, I quit monthlies about 2 years ago. I get my super-hero fill with all the live-action big budget movies/direct-to-dvd animated flicks and animated TV shows instead.

$3.99?!?!? :eek: I think I started around the $.60 - $.75 range.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

Just because the newly published content is prohibitively expensive/uninteresting is no reason to abandon the medium entirely. I recently started exploring comics again for the first time in a long while, partly because my local library has an expanding selection of graphic novels and trade paperbacks, and partly because Half Price Books has a comics section. Even without buying anything published this decade, there are all kinds of back issues and titles I never got around to reading during their original run for me to explore today.

For instance, I never actually picked up a single issue of Bone while it was being published. I have since read it and fallen completely in love with it. I even got my wife to read it, and she loved it, too. Everyone's free to do as he or she sees fit, of course, but I can think of way too many older runs by various creators on various titles I still haven't read to think I've exhausted the appeal of comics altogether.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

Exactly.

I haven't bought monthlies in a year or four, and very few collections in the same time, but will always consider myself a comic collector.

I'll read and re-read what I have, and pick up missing older issues from time to time. I'm also fairly confident that I'll end up picking up 10+ TPBs from every year of recent and future history.

But picking up 10-50 monthlies every month, like I did in the 80s and 90s? Yeah, that's forever over.

And another reminder to finally finish reading Bone. Loved the first ten issues and have been saving the rest for a rainy day.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

I only collected comics as a kid. My dad was always big on reading, and was a comic fan himself, so whenever I asked if we could go to a toy store, he'd say, "No, but we can go get some comics instead."

I was a big Marvel fan. The only DC character I was really into was Batman, but I could appreciate Superman and Green Lantern. But Spider-Man, X-Men, Hulk, Iron Man, I got tons of those comics.

But even at an early age (this was already the 90's), I realized that monthlies were a crock. I couldn't tell you how many titles I purchased, only to discover that the resolution would not be in next month's issue, but rather in that same month's issue of Spectacular Spider-Man or X-Force or whatever. That was the point where I started buying trades, because I knew I'd get the whole story in one go.

From that point on, I only bought individual event titles, like the Death of Superman. But I was also already realizing that the stories were being recycled, and no one stayed dead for very long, and I didn't see the point. I did have a subscription to Amazing Spider-Man, and I remember getting issue 400 in the mail, but by then the only superhero comics I read were from trades.

In high school I picked up a copy of The Dark Knight Returns and that was about the end of my reading new mainstream superhero comics. From there I found Watchmen, Sandman, Preacher, Ghost World, Strangers In Paradise, Bone, Hellboy, and many other independent/non-superhero based comics. Now the only superhero comics I read are what if style comics, or specific runs by authors I like (such as Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men). But even then I only do it in trades.

Now I keep my ear to the ground for any good comics worth checking out (a la Walking Dead, Ex Machina, etc.) and pick up the trades when they come out. I've also enjoyed collecting these higher end collections (such as the DC Absolute Editions or the Hellboy Library editions, the Vertigo deluxe editions, etc.), as I like sitting at home on my couch and reading these giant tomes. I've also lately been interested in checking out more European comics and older horror/sci-fi anthology titles.

I will say I have enjoyed what Marvel tried to do with the Ultimate universe, but by now it's as convoluted as the regular universe, so I've given up on that as well.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

Suprmallet, I think you're doing things the right way. Writing off comics completely seems so silly to me, when really the only thing most fatigued readers need to do is change their reading habits. Nobody needs to buy 20 monthly books each month, if any at all. Just expand their horizons, try some new stuff, and keep an ear out for the new exciting books.

I think reading comics, without trying to "keep up" with all the happenings of DC and Marvel, only makes you a happier reader. I still love me some mainstream comics, but the trades I read from the library I look at as contained stories.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

Yeah, I don't think I'll ever stop enjoying comics, but the idea of trying to keep up with all those monthlies makes me thoroughly bored.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

I used to be big into comics when I was younger (mid-80s to early 90s). I stopped for about a decade, picked up a few titles in 2001-2002 and realized I wasn't that interested anymore. Haven't been in a comic shop since and my comics have been collecting dust in my attic for about 7 years or so. I don't quite have the heart to get rid of them, yet I don't look at them either.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

I stopped buying monthlies sometime during the mid-90s, when I realized TPBs were much cheaper in the long run.

The idea that you "need" to buy monthlies otherwise comics will cease to exist is a crock of shit. The idea that if you don't buy monthlies, the comics industry as it exists today will cease to exist is valid; that's also the point (for me at least).

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

With age comes different interests in material.

When I was younger I was all about the superhero books.

But by the age of 16-17 I was looking for more adult situation titles.

Now that I have children and not as much time to invest, I've been purchasing omnibus',absolutes and oversized collections. And titles that are less likely to release I've been sending off to have bound and slipcased.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

What have you had bound?

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

So Ras Al Guld strips Batman. Good thing Batman was apparently wearing an extra pair of pants & shorts.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

The only comics I buy still are GIJoe & Transformers. Unfortunatly, it seems both titles tend to have 3-4 series/miniseries going at the same time so I get about 8 issues a month. Used to buy a lot more back when they were cheaper. At one point I was getting Batman/FF/Spiderman/Star Wars as well as Joe/TF. Still have all of them in comic boxes. I'd love to sell them off but nobody buys them at a decent price. While I aren't expecting cover price, I'd rather keep them then sell at .25 cents an issue.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

I always thought it was odd that Ra's has the costume in hand. I remember reading an article sometime back in which Neal Adam's addressed this. He said it was an editorial decision. He wanted Ra's to be holding just the shirt or a sword; which would have made more sense. In the story Batman is dressed as he is on the cover.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

I'm interested to see pics of these.

Re: My Lifetime of Collecting Has Ended
 

I started at $0.20 and the 100 pagers for only $0.50. I'm sure there are those here that started at $0.12 cents or less.